


Once on This Island

by Bodhicitta



Category: Dune - All Media Types, Dune Series - Frank Herbert, Sherlock (TV), Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies), The Little Mermaid - All Media Types
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, F/F, F/M, Gift to MizJoely, khanolly
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-06-10 15:49:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6963139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bodhicitta/pseuds/Bodhicitta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A gift to MizJoely and AllTheBellsInVenice.  Is it presumptuous and rude of me to gift to these authors?  I don't know how gifting works.  I haven't met them, e-mailed, Instagrammed, or Tumbler-ed them. I merely like their work.  Love their work.  I hope I do not transgress AO3 etiquette in doing this.</p><p>***<br/>I'll admit - when Khanolly fics started popping up, I thought, "that's it, the internet has officially gone crazy"....</p><p>And now, it is my favorite, and may be my OTP.  </p><p>You either get it...or you don't....<br/>***</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MizJoely](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MizJoely/gifts), [AllTheBellsInVenice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllTheBellsInVenice/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Am I to be your punishment, Molly?"

"Am I...to be your _punishment_ , Molly?" Khan's voice broke as he begged for her to look at him, to give him any sign that she could feel his presence. Any sign that she was alive more than just bodily - a sign that she was still the same sweet radiant creature that he had come to, well, that he had come to love.

She did not answer.  She seemed to understand what he was asking her, even though she most certainly could not hear him, trapped as she was, encased in a haze or a force field of some sort, gases or suspended liquids of various hues swirling around her like smoke.  She essentially floated in it, suspended, but she did not struggle.  Instead, her limbs were held out softly around her, hands open in supplication.  Could she hear his voice?  

"Molly...look at me...answer me."

She turned suddenly and made eye contact with him, or so it seemed.  Could she hear him?  Her eyes seemed to look straight at him, or through him.  And then her brow wrinkled in understanding.  Perhaps she could hear him.  Whatever plasma she was encased in must allow sound waves to penetrate, but there was a delay, almost as if she were separated from him miles, and not meters.

Her eyes widened, and a look of great concern swept across her face.  She shook her head frantically, but her motions were slowed by the density of whatever material surrounded her.  Her hair free-floating, followed the motions of her head, swirled about her, as if underwater.  Her garments, sea green and grey and white and all the pinks of the sky at dawn floated around her, tangled around her legs, oozing over her body like living silk.

No, she seemed to say.  But it wasn't in answer to that question.   

"Am I...your _punishment_?" he asked again, his voice lower, barely able to choke out the words.  He did not want to hear the answer but knew he must.   He had to know.  He had to know how they had come to this impasse, how they had ended up on this planet, in some remote quadrant of a long forgotten galaxy, on a desert world, in the middle of a cathedral of mountains sat on a wide, windless plain, Molly trapped in a prison of unknown strength and origin, Khan frantically inspecting the impassive aliens before him to try to manage an escape.

And had it all been engineered from the start?  Not just the start of his journey across the stars, not the start of his life, or even hers, long as it had proven to be.

At the start of all things.  Every _Thing_ had led to this.  He was beginning to understand; the full weight, the full gravity, if you will, of this moment had begun to dawn on him.  And the import, the elemental importance of the outcome on All Things.

"That is enough."  The co-mingled voices of thousands interrupted his thoughts.

The Priestess stood up suddenly; her Chorus, Handmaidens, and third tier underlings quickly rose to surround and escort her.  She took two steps forward, and then raised her hand.

She looked about her, mentally directing her Chorus to speak.  The line of reed-thin women, with skin black, snow-white, pink, yellow, green, grey - and faces ancient as stone - turned to Khan, opened their mouths, and with one voice comprised of many voices (old, young, male, female), delivered the Priestess' thoughts.  

"We've played too many games, and wasted too much time."

Khan started shaking his head slowly.

"It is time to discharge the sentence."

"Sentence?"  Khan spat out disdainfully, scanning the outdoor throne pavilion for heavy objects, sharp tools, rounded stones, sticks, glass, rope...anything that could be repurposed into a weapon.

"There are no weapons here, Noonien Singh," said the Chorus.

"Molly, you understand your transgressions."

Molly obediently turned her head towards the Priestess and nodded slowly.  She turned her head back towards Khan but dropped her eyes before he could look into them.

Khan dared to step forward towards the pavilion on which sat the throne.  "Has there been a trial?  Where is her representation?  Her counsel."

The Priestess' face broke into a smile.  Her Handmaidens quickly followed suit with cloned smiles of their own, the expression racing from face to face down the line of the women like a computer signal. 

Khan pounded the ground beneath him, his feet devouring the distance between him and his Loved One.  In less than one second he was in front of Molly, but as he reached out to grab her, his hand passed through the space where she seemed to be floating, passed through her as if she was not there at all, and she faded from view, like smoke.  As his arm moved, he felt a nauseating sense of being pulled apart, bodily, as if his arm, passing through that space, was being separated from his body.  No pain, but an existential tearing.  If he had left his arm there, he may have been dragged in.

When his arm had made its way though the plasma, slowly, and come out the other side, Molly gradually reappeared, like smoke.  She smiled weakly, and gazed at him with that infinite love he had come to expect from her.  

Was it some sort of black energy...a black hole harnessed to create a small prison.  His engineers could work it out - and perhaps exploit it - at a later time.

One handmaiden spoke, as if dealing with this minor annoyance did not even rate the full Chorus.  "How funny.  He thinks she is actually _Here_!"

Obviously, they were reading his mind, easily, without effort.  

The Priestess rolled her eyes.

Another handmaiden commented, "Oh, I see.  He does not understand."

Khan instantly was angered.  He had been tricked.  All of this was some elaborate ruse.  His Molly was not even here.  Was she a projection?  A hologram?  A transmission?  She might not even be on this planet. She might not even be in this parsec!

She could be _light years_ away.

That is why she looked at him with such soulful, sad, despairing eyes.  She had been used to bait him, to lure.  She was his lure.  The perfect lure. Only she could have led him to this place.  And she knew it, and felt remorseful.  Had she been complicit?  He would never believe it.

"My, the ego is strong in this one," voiced three of the Handmaidens.  "He actually thinks this is about him!"

Apparently, his musing had warranted at least three of the Handmaidens.  The others were preparing some sort of ritual, smoothing out a gold fabric that shimmered with glints of purple and royal blue and green, arranging goblets on a huge stone table that seemed hewn from the very mountains that surrounded them on all sides, cracking open vials of iridescent fluid that sparkled and oozed viscously like mercury.  Something acrid rose from the agate bowls in which they mixed the potions.  A thin curl of smoke licked its way toward the sky.  The Handmaidens breathed in the noxiousness and murmured their approval.  The Priestess merely nodded.  The preparations were almost complete.

What they were planning to do -to him? to Molly - and _why_ , was only distantly interesting to him.  Why she was being punished....he barely had time to contemplate such an absurdity.  She, with all her Perfections.  Why would she need to be....

More important, he needed to craft a way to release Molly, to save her, from whatever was happening, wherever she might be.  He needed to act. To free her.  To get them both off of this planet.   

Come what may.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

He approached the plasma cloud again, this time gently, and reached out to His Sweet One, even though he now fully comprehended and believed that he could not actually touch her.  The Priestess and her Handmaidens observed him condescendingly, as if watching a toddler learn object permanence.  

_The stupid boy._

_He is rather like an adolescent, isn't he, Ma'am?_

_They all are.  Infants.  Still.  After so many eons._

_One had hoped for more...maturation...after this much Time...._

Khan's hand carefully approached the plasma field enveloping his Molly.  The gases ebbed away from him, but slowly this time.  So it responded to the strength of his gesture, almost as if reading his mind, his intention.

Molly stared at him with sorrowful brown eyes.  She gulped, obviously distressed, probably feeling, intuiting his distress.  He knew that due to the nature of their Bond, whatever he felt - anguish, anger, despair - would be magnified in her tenfold, so he tried to school himself into a calmer state.  He swallowed down his fury, breathed through flared nostrils, closed his eyes and reopened them. 

The plasma had changed color.  Now she floated in a haze of pale blue, lavender.  He stood right before her - if she was even there - and slowly, very slowly this time, achingly slowly, he reached out.  The plasma did not move, or if it did move, it merely quavered and did not retract.  He took the opportunity to run his hands over the entire shape of the field, essentially describing her very shape with his hands.  Tracing the curve of her waist and her hips.  Sculpting a gentle loving shape about her head.  Tracing his finger tips in front of her breasts, the breasts he had worshipped and adored with his lips and tongue so many times.  He raised one hand up in front of her, and she reached out as well; their fingertips almost touched.  Of course, the plasma prevented that - a millimeters thick field of viscous energy.

She was thoroughly prisoned.  And yet the look on her face told him that merely to be near him in some fashion sated her, as always.  She gazed at him with Eternity in her eyes.

To be this near to her and not to be able to really touch her was a special kind of hell.  But it was always this way.

From the very first.  From the first time he had beheld her.

***

Dragmare Quadrant.  Remote.  Barren, useless.  The most the Vengeance could hope for from one of the four worlds ambling about this feeble star was to top off some much needed supplies.  No planets lay in "the Goldilocks zone," but perhaps liquid water flowed beneath the ice crust on the moon of the fourth planet, a gas giant enveloped in orange and dusky rose clouds.

His away team had reported that the encampment had long since been abandoned by the menfolk.  All that remained was a rag tag group of the useless and the cast-off: Thalassian entertainers - they might have been called gypsies in another more barbaric time; captured sons and daughters of royal families from across the quadrant, who had been used as living shields.  And their handmaidens, and ladies in waiting, and slaves.  The occasional whore.  Some traders at the end of their luck.  One or two hapless scientists.

They were huddled in the corner of a derelict food storage warehouse.  Cold, near starvation, covered in sores and pustules.  They should have been more terrified, more cowed.

"Well, keep them well away from me - I can't stand shrieking and crying." His first lieutenant promised to keep the grannies and desperate whores from his commander.  Still Khan felt obliged to personally inspect them before bringing them aboard his vessel.  Just in case there were spies, or suicide bombers.

Instead of women clutching at their uniform sleeves, instead of wailing babes, his men found the ragtag group strangely calm.

Of course, _now_ Khan knew why, knew why people who should have been cannibalizing themselves from desperation were calmed, quieted.  Mollified

He adjusted his helmet, exited the shuttle bay and strode up to the group, just before they were to board the Vengeance II, a smallish, steel-blue away vessel, serviceable enough, dented in just a few places.  Khan planned to succinctly inform them of their need to submit thoroughly to his command and then return to his seat at the helm.

The refugees seemed huddled around a central point.  And then he felt it.  The pull.  Weak at first, and then growing in strength like the approach of a magnet.  He felt drawn to the swarm of rank, unwashed souls, pulled deeper and deeper in, until he was thoroughly in their midst.  The old women and prepubescent boys and sex slaves and youngsters all ebbed out of the way of the Great Khan.  He saw they had been amassed about one small woman.  This was where the scent emanated from.  

A scent he was drawn to before he was aware of having detected it at all.  Lilies.  Hyacinth  Something floral, almost too strong, too heady.  Almost rotten.  Something in him knew he should hesitate before bringing her onboard his vessel, his home, his only shelter in this wide universe.

He barely looked at her.  He had had some experience with Omegas, Sirens, and Muses as his army beat a path through the galaxies.  It annoyed him that even he, the great Khan, could be manipulated by their various charms.  To look directly at such a being was to risk being hypnotized.  He knew that, and it rankled him.  Subconsciously he knew even then, that this small creature threatened more than a mere hypnotic trance.  There was something altogether too elemental about her.

He quickly took in her height, weight, waist circumference, the size of her breasts, her lips.  Too small.  All of it.  She couldn't possibly be one of those afore-encountered sorceresses, unless she was the cast-off half-breed of an ill-fated coupling.  

He stared somewhere above her head (chestnut colored, fragrant and fresh, and somehow moving of its own accord, though there was no wind).  He spoke to her, or rather, at her,  but his speech was meant for the ears all those present.  

_You will come aboard my ship.  You will comply with all that is asked of you.  And you will not be harmed.  But we have no reason to keep you alive for more than one second and at the first sign of transgression, you will be punished, swiftly, and mercilessly.  You have nothing we want, and we have everything you need. Complete acquiescence to me, your Khan, is your life philosophy now, your religion._

And so on.  The old women clung to each other as he issued his directives - to their ears, his language sounded like barking, growling, snapping.  A few sobs escaped their lips, or more accurately, the lips of the middle aged women.  The very old did not cry, nor did they quake.  They did not need to understand even one word that fell from his lips to know what he was saying and how to survive.  Their grey hair proved they knew how to survive.  They had lived long enough to know exactly what sort of man this was.  Men like him had many names and came in many forms - _General.  Admiral.  King.  Emperor.  President.  Prime Minister.  Caesar.  Le Roi.  Tryxnyster.  Governor.  Massuh._

And now _Khan_.

The littlest children wailed, but the older ones had enough reason to try to hush their tears, and they buried their sobs in the chests of their caretakers.  The younger women mentally prepared themselves for the worst, hoped they would be chosen to be the "comfort wench" of just one, or at most, two soldiers, and not passed around until barely alive.  Some mentally scanned themselves for anything with which to kill themselves (a sash made of strong silk, a pin on a broach) should the need arise.  They had been trained in many methods.  There was a legend of one Samarithion woman who had cut off her own knee length auburn tresses with a ragged shell, braided it, and hung herself by her own hair.

However, some of the more experienced whores seemed downright gleeful; they smoothed their clothing, bit their lips to make them redder, pinched their cheeks to bring the rosy glow back, and generally readied themselves for their new lives aboard the enormous gleaming vessel, counting themselves lucky to be off this gods-forsaken ice pile.

Even though he knew they could not understand his language, they all understood who he was and how they might, just might stay alive. As they shuffled past him, some of the more emboldened whores dared to brush against his rock hard frame or cast a smile up at him, an invitation and a promise.  He could have sworn one more more was bold enough to whisper to him, to speak directly to him!

_I will suck you off until your vision goes white._

_Call for me tonight- I'll let you put it everywhere and anywhere._

And though it had been a very long time, the notion of having relations with a captive was inherently disgusting to him.  Beneath him.  The very notion - him, a Khan.  Fine for the crew though.  He hoped they would take their pleasure, and then thank him later with hard work and longer hours.

Yet the little thing had not moved.  She remained rooted to her spot, in that shabby little brown tunic and animal skins barely adequate to protect her from the frigid clime.  Even in their petrified state, most of women had almost run into the open bay for the warmth and food that certainly lay within.  But she stayed, impassive.

What did she expect?  An invitation?  

She merely stood her ground and stared at him with those eyes, those eyes.  Were they bigger now?  How did she do that? Dammit.

Maybe he was mistaken about her.  Maybe she was a priestess, or a princess, or head of state.  Well, perhaps not a head of state, but some remnant of a failed system of governance that the others had clung to for hope and a sense of order.

Was she waiting for some sort of official treaty?  A ceremony?  Proclamations?  There would be none.  He refused to hold out his hand for her, to take even one step towards her, to offer any sort of invitation to board the vessel.  

He turned and strode back towards the Vengeance II.

She could die here on this boulder if she liked.  So what if that fragrance was like nothing he had ever scented before, and her eyes spoke of a warmth he had never known, and the old women were calling to her in their language, begging her to join them, and one of the children had broken free and run back to her and was now clinging to her skirts and his men were looking at him with questioning eyes, wondering why he didn't jump on to the deck of the ramp and signal for them to slam the door shut against any captive stupid enough to remain behind.

She looked down, her emotions unreadable.  By Gods, this was annoying.  Fine.  Maybe she had some prohibition about entering a strange vessel without an invitation. Like that legendary creature from ancient Earth fictions....vampyre, or something of that sort.

He turned to face her again and extended his hand.  She looked up from underneath her thick lashes.  The child had clambered up her torso and was now clinging to her like a monkey.

Still not enough?  With a great huff he strode over to her, stood beside her, and placing one arm around her shoulder and holding onto her left forearm, led her towards the ship. His lieutenants waved at him frantically; apparently a storm of unknown ferocity was approaching, and although the mother ship was built to withstand all manner of buffeting, not every shuttle had that capacity.

When he had her aboard, he hesitated to leave her side.  Her body heat was exactly that of his own.  Holding her, touching her was like slipping into body temperature water, gentle, and infinitely relaxing.  What harm would it be to linger with her for a while, to try to discern her story and that of the others, even though the translators aboard the Vengeance would make short work of any linguistic barriers.  But his crew expected him to take the helm, so he withdrew his arms from her.  

When what he really wanted to do was wrap himself around her tightly, like roots of a tree.  To be this close to her and not touch her was the very definition of Hell.  He suddenly felt cold and shivered.  

She look up at him shyly.  

Try as he might to school himself, he gulped.

A _captive_.  Disgusting.  Gods damn it.  He needed a mate.  Or at least, a recreational partner.  He would have to reconsider Irene's offer of companionship.  

He walked away from the little thing without looking back.  "As soon as we can drop them off," he muttered to himself.  

**Author's Note:**

> Many notes to follow. First, I just wanted to get out some ideas. As usual,** I like to start with the ending...
> 
> ** or maybe not so usual....I think this is the first that I've done this way....
> 
> NEW NOTE (5/27/16) - Apologies if you have bookmarked me - I edit a LOT when I re-read my own stuff - you might get notifications each time - SORRY!!!!


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